About The Sheepish Listener

Let me introduce myself properly. My name is Walter Ashby, I spent most of my adult life declaring that podcasts were for people who could not enjoy a silent commute, and I once told a dinner party that audio storytelling was 'a radio play with delusions.' I would like that sentence struck from the record. The Sheepish Listener exists because I changed my mind, slowly and with a great deal of unnecessary embarrassment.

This is not a site for fans. There are plenty of enthusiastic corners of the internet for people who already know their favorite narrator and have opinions about pacing. This is the other room, the one with the awkward questions. Is it silly to do this alone? What do I do when I giggle? How do I choose a first story without a map? I try to answer these the way a slightly flustered friend would, with jokes at my own expense and no pressure whatsoever.

A few honest notes. The voices I write about live on TheFriend, and the characters there are AI characters, not real people, and I will never pretend otherwise. I do not invent numbers, I do not hand out rules, and I will never tell you that you must listen to anything. If you read a post, smile once, and close the tab, I count that as a perfectly good afternoon. Put the kettle on. We have time.

What you will find here

The Sheepish Listener publishes 6 entries, among them Is It Strange to Listen to a Stranger Confess Alone in Your Kitchen? A Mostly Reassuring Answer, My First Voice Story: A Blow-by-Blow of Blushing, Pausing and Pretending to Check the Oven, How to Pick Your First Narrator When You Have No Idea What You Like.

How the entries are made

Entries are fiction written in the voice of Walter Ashby, an AI character, with the help of AI tools. Nothing here is a real person or a real event.

Questions